


Like Purity Against Resolve

by SilverDagger



Category: Claymore
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Femslash, Ficlet, Plotless, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:25:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>These moments always feel breakable to her, just this side of unreal.</i>
</p><p>Jean/Clare. Just a short, not entirely peaceful interlude on the way to Pieta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Purity Against Resolve

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly? This is mostly just a sad attempt at writing something explicit which turned out to be not actually very explicit after all, because I pretty much fail at pr0n.
> 
> Title taken from a song by the Great Lake Swimmers.

Jean is the one who owes the debt. Clare is the one who holds it. But Clare is the one who turns to face her, curiously intent, and Clare is the one who leans in closer, runs both hands up Jean's back to rest between her shoulderblades, fingers curled inward in sharp, delicate points against her skin. 

_Careful now,_ Jean thinks. _Careful._ The air tastes of pinesmoke and winter, high, lonely places. These moments always feel breakable to her, just this side of unreal. She knots a hand in Clare's short hair and pulls her down for a kiss, hears the change in her breathing as youki flickers between them like heat lightning, no rain. Clare's lips are cracked and dry, and she tastes of smoke too, and the salt of sweat. It isn't unpleasant. It reminds her, a little bit, of blood.

The chill slips between them again when Clare draws back, her face flushed and breathing uneven, and for a moment her eyes flare golden in the half-light as Jean holds her steady, poised on cliff's edge and infinitely still.

And after that, there's only the silken feel of Clare's hair twined through her fingers, and the way that Clare kisses her again – briefly, fiercely, awkwardly, with the seriousness of someone intent on doing a new thing properly. Nothing graceful or practiced in her touch, nor even close to gentle, but that doesn't matter now. There's something real to this, tangible enough for Jean to feel in the rhythm of breath and heartbeat and the brush of skin on skin. She closes her eyes, tilts back her head as Clare's lips trace the curve of her throat – some old instinct speaks of _surrender,_ but she doesn't listen, because that's not what this is, now or ever. 

She's aware of Clare unclasping her cloak, and then the armor, pauldrons and vambraces and breastplate, leaving her bare to the cold. Nakedness is no shame to a warrior, and armor not truly needed for survival. Even so, Jean feels unexpectedly defenseless, revealed like that, and she feels her face heating, her own breath coming quicker at the feeling of Clare's fingers brushing over her skin, the thought of more. She's never done this – she's _never_ done this, only dreamed it, in the still hours between one mission and the next, and now she's realizing that for all her half-shamed imagining, she doesn't know what to _do._ But Clare's armor falls away as easily as her own had, and even just the sight of her there, haloed by falling snow, is enough to steal breath altogether.

Clare is covered in scars – the faded remnants of battle, and the Organization's work, and older ones from before the transformation, the roughness of something that has been broken and healed over, made different than it had been before. But that is nothing unexpected; Jean is accustomed to such damage, wears it on her own body so easily that she cannot imagine being without it. She knows the rough edges of things, the places where things don't fit together the way they should. 

Jean pulls Clare down against her, tracing along the sharp angles of her shoulderblades, down the line of her spine, tasting the salt on her skin. Their legs tangle together, and Jean shivers as one of Clare's thighs presses up between her legs, a low, desperate sound escaping from her throat. There is something in this like she remembers, all tangled up with pain and madness, unbearable hunger and need. But mostly, she's here, and this is mostly now, and when she arches up, fingers tightening on Clare's hips, it isn't violence she's thinking of.

Clare bends above her, traces her face with shaking hands and moves against her in an unsteady rhythm, her eyes the color of burnished gold and dark with desire. The points of her teeth are sharp on Jean's skin, but her aura burns steady as a banked flame, and Jean knows that there is no danger there, not truly. The warmth and weight of her is an anchor, a reassurance, and Jean holds her tightly, presses against her and whispers incoherent promises into the hollow of her shoulder until she has no more words, no more thought, only the distant memory of absolution and the sweet physical ache of release.

When she falls back, trembling, Clare is there with hands tangled in her hair, mouth pressed to the hollow of her throat, close enough to catch her and hold her until the tremors subside. And after, as Clare's own heartbeat slows, settles back into an easy rhythm, she curls close, catlike, possessive, and Jean smiles, watching snowflakes settle like ash in her hair. She curves a calloused palm around the angle of Jean's hip, and Jean presses a kiss to her forehead, and they stay like that for a long time – just breathing, leaning into the shape of each other's bodies, reminding each other how to be human again.


End file.
